In The Brave New World
by Tag324B21
Summary: Cosima Niehaus was leaving it all behind, even if for a few days. But she knew she couldn't hide from reality. What was real anyway? She remembers when and how her life went topsy-turvy and how she has been trying to maintain a calm front ever since. But despite her vast arsenal of scientific knowledge, she's only human... a sick, fragile, broken human.
1. Chapter 1

As another bout of hacking cough rattles my lungs and burn my throat, I quickly cover my mouth with my palm. I have had this nagging cough for quite sometime now. May be an allergic reaction to something? The cough was dry when it first appeared but as time passed, it became productive. Even though I'm not a doctor, I know my fair share of biology. It is not allergy. Perhaps just a case of bad cold?

I know the other possibility... the one which is more probable. I don't want to think about it, not right now.

I settle down on my seat and look outside. I see a familiar face on the glass window. I wonder how many times I have seen that face... on the mirror, in pictures, on people. I silently recount how many times I've had to cross out my own face in my research notes with a red marker. I briefly wonder if I'm any more real than the reflection facing me. How much worth are the 3.2 billion base pairs that code my molecular existence? Do they matter any more than the virtual image in front of me?

I glance at my palm and suck in a startled breath. The sputum on my palm looks pinkish. Could it be blood? Is it just a matter of time before I started coughing up frank blood like Katja? As I wipe my hands clean with a piece of tissue paper, I idly wonder if I'm dying.

Death is inevitable. All of us die, right? Every organism dies. I'll probably die earlier than the rest. Does it matter? I'm a lab rat anyway, as Alison had rightly put it once. I have seen countless guinea pigs die in my own experiments. I have "monitored" my experimental subjects a thousand of times. I have felt bad for them but I've watched them die without interfering the process. I have always argued with myself that it's all for the greater good.

I wonder what my monitor thinks, if she feels anything at all.

I quickly scrunch my eyes closed. _Don't go there, Niehaus._

For the first time in my life, I am not interested about the passenger beside me. I don't care to watch my fellow travelers today. I can't help but delve into my memories as the day when all of this first started, when the unraveling of my identity first started, play on my mind.

(...)

I was savoring the first hit of pot in my lungs when the phone first rang. I was startled when the shrill ring of my phone cut through the silence of my room. It was from an anonymous number. I cursed under my breath and picked up the call.

"Hello?"

"Hello, am I speaking to Ms. Cosima Niehaus?"

I furrowed my brow. The voice sounded somewhat familiar but not quite. Besides, she spoke in a different accent. Canadian, I guessed.

"Yes?" It came out as a question. I took another puff from the roll of joint burning between my fingers.

"Ms. Niehaus, there is something I want to talk to you about."

I tried to recall if I had heard that accent somewhere, if this caller was somehow known to me. I came up empty. "Who's this?"

"I'm... never mind. We can't talk like this, not over phone."

"Why did you call me then?" On hindsight, that probably sounded rude but I was on my way of getting high and this lady, whoever she was, had just called me to inform we couldn't talk over phone... about something.

"Uh, I was wondering if we could meet?" There was a slight hesitation in her voice.

I should have probably hung up then. That would be the smartest thing to do. But my curiosity got the better of me.

"Alright, where do you wanna meet?"

There was a slight pause before she answered. "You're in Minneapolis... University of Minnesota, right?"

I was intrigued. Whoever called me knew not only my name but my location as well. I briefly debated if I should deny and disconnect. Looked like I had a stalker, a female stalker with a somewhat familiar voice that I couldn't quite place and a foreign accent (if Canada could be called foreign?). It sounded dangerous and may be, that piqued my interest.

"Who is this?" I asked again, dumbly.

"Miss Niehaus, we really need to talk, in person. It's urgent." Indeed I could hear the urgency in her voice. A chill ran down my spine. It excited me.

"Okay, where do you wanna meet?" I tried to sound as cool as possible. Perhaps it was possible because of the marijuana clouding my lungs and streaming through my blood.

"I'm landing in Minneapolis tomorrow at 6 in the evening. Do you have any place in mind?"

_How considerate of my stalker,_ I chuckled silently to myself. "Okay, there is a cafeteria at the Uni..."

She cut me off before I could finish. "Trust me, you don't want to meet me at your University."

My patience was now withering. "Why not?" I couldn't help but huff out in annoyance.

"You'll know when we meet." _How cryptic of her._

"Okay..." I drew out, trying to think of another place in this new town. "I know a bar near the airport. We could meet there." I had gone to the bar once and befriended the bouncer. It should be relatively safer.

"Okay, give me the address."

Over the next minute I gave her the address. She promised to meet me at 7 the following evening.

"Please, it is very important that you turn up. I don't want to alarm you but... but there could be lives depending on this meeting." Before I could respond, she hung up.

I shrugged in irritation and confusion and took a long puff and inhaled deeply. Suddenly it hit me why her voice had sounded so familiar. She sounded a bit like me. As soon as I thought that, I was also struck by the absurdity of the situation. I furrowed my brow as I tried to focus on the joint as it burned to almost a stub.

_Wow, I should really cut down on my pot._


	2. Chapter 2

_Shit!_

I had woken up late and now I had to rush if I wanted to be in class on time. I had just started my course this semester and surely, in the eyes of my supervisor, I was still on probation. Besides, it doesn't set a good example for a TA to be late in class.

The rest of the day was a blur as I bounced between classes, the lab and the library. I sighed in relief when my day was mercifully over... or so I thought, until my phone rang.

It was an anonymous number.

_Shit, I forgot. _I had somewhere to be, I suddenly remembered as I vaguely recalled last night's mysterious phone call. _This is what you get for speaking on the phone baked, Niehaus. _

"Hello", I said into the speaker tentatively as I glanced at my watch. It was already seven. Perhaps the mysterious caller was already in the bar.

"Where are you?" came the impatient reply.

I frowned. "How do you know I'm not there yet?"

"I know you're not here. Where are you?" Damn, she sounded impatient... and sexy. _What the hell!_

I took in a deep breath. "Okay, okay, sorry, give me 10 minutes. I'll be there... And this better be worth it."

"You have no idea." _Did she just smirk?_

As I was about to disconnect, a thought occurred to me. "How will I know it's you?"

This time the woman on the other side let out a dry chuckle. "Don't worry, you'll know when you see me."

(...)

I hurried inside the bar as Tonya, the bouncer, gave me a small wave of recognition. I internally debated if I should clue her in, you know, in case I were in trouble I decided against it. There was no need to sound the alarm before I figured out what this was about.

I looked around for a second in the dim light, trying to figure out who the mystery woman was but then I gave up. I didn't even know how she looked like, so there was no point. Instead I picked up a seat close to the exit (in case I needed to get out of there quickly) and tried to settle down. I couldn't. Every sensory receptor in my body was taught and alert and I could feel the adrenalin coursing through my veins. I saw the cute bartender who had hit on me last time I was here but now was not the time to think about her. I waited for a few moments until the waiter came to me for my order.

_How the hell have I gotten myself into this situation anyway?_

After the waiter departed, a shadowy figure appeared seemingly out of nowhere and dropped herself on the chair opposite to mine. She was wearing a hoodie so I couldn't see her face yet but I knew that it was a woman from her anatomy. She was about my height and my build.

"Ms. Niehaus, we need to talk."

I had a dozen of utterly rude (and a few witty) comebacks I could've thrown back at her right then but I didn't. "I can tell."

"I'm sorry I made you wait but I had to make sure that you were here alone."

I still had the chance to stand up and walk away but I didn't. I guess I've always been an idiot. "Do you realize it's very hard to hold a conversation when you're covering your face?"

She shrugged and sighed. "As you wish," she muttered before she dropped the hood.

In that singular moment, I turned into a vegetable. My mouth must have gaped comically and I must have been gaping at her like an owl. _A look alike? _I watched her more closely. I was seeing my own face there. But it wasn't me. I mean, duh, it wasn't me... she didn't have my fake dreads, my glasses, my nose ring... but apart from that... almost everything was the same. She had my eyes, my forehead, my lips, my jawline. It was scary and exhilarating, like riding a roller coaster for the first time.

She was sitting there patiently, watching my reaction silently but she looked like she was scared herself.

I cleared my throat. "Are you my long lost twin or something?" I didn't know what else to think. I mean, come on, this degree of similarities in phenotype could only be possible from a common genotype... more specifically, maternal twins.

"I would've said so," she replied, "had I not known two more living, breathing women who look like us."

_Long lost quadruplets? _"You mean there are four of us?" I was having a hard time holding on to my patience but this mystery was getting deeper, it had my attention.

"Alive, yeah." Her tone suggested that the word "alive" was the most important word.

"Who are you?" My voice cracked and I don't know how she heard my question because my voice had gotten so low that I could hardly hear it myself over the bass playing through the jukebox.

She straightened. "I'm Detective Elizabeth Childs with Toronto Police Service."

_She's a cop. Damn. _"Uh, don't you think you're outside your jurisdiction?" I couldn't help but spurt out. This wasn't a good time to joke and I could already sense that she had a Type A personality, she wouldn't welcome it either.

"If I were here on police business, you would've known." I would've considered it as a threat had she not cracked me a small smile. She even had the kinks in her teeth, just like me.

"So what is this about?"

I was a straight A student with good comprehensive skills. I wasn't dumb and I had just been accepted into the PhD program at the prestigious University of Minnesota. Yet, I was sitting here, questioning everything, as my doppleganger sat in front of me, watching me. Not that I believed in dopplegangers...

"Ms. Niehaus, since you're a scientist, we were hoping you could figure that out for us."

_Ah, great. _"Can you tell me what's going on?" I was intrigued and spooked by the situation at the same time. My voice must have risen because the couple passing by our seats gave us a look.

"Okay then," the detective threw her hands on the table in resignation. She slipped a picture in front of me.

I leaned forward, adjusting my glasses and was immediately shocked. It was a picture of me (or her?) with short red hair. "Who's this?"

She pinched the bridge of her nose and paused for a moment. "Her name is Katja Obinger. She's from Germany."

I stared at her blankly.

"A month ago, she contacted me. She said she was in danger, that she was being hunted by someone. She also said that we were all in danger." She paused and checked to see if I was listening. Obviously, I was. It was too weird to not listen. "She said I was in danger too. She said it was somehow related to our similar appearances, that we were being hunted. I shrugged her off at first but then she quoted me three other cases of homicide in the EU. I did a bit of research... and she was right. All of them looked like us."

"So apart from you and I, how many are there again?" This was way too confusing, even for be I was not drunk enough.

"Five."

I gawked. Five? Five lookalikes? Really?

Detective Childs sighed heavily and placed a few more photographs in front of me. Surely, each of the faces staring at me were mine but definitely not mine.

I swallowed. I couldn't believe my eyes. There had to be an explanation for all of this shit but I really had no idea what it was. "And they're not photoshopped?"

Childs gave me this look that said _Aren't you too dumb to be a scientist? _I didn't care. Sorry but this was too hard to digest. My mind was racing at a thousand miles per hour. What could possibly explain the existence of seven different individuals who looked exactly alike.

After a moment of silence, I spoke again, "How did you find me?"

"Through facial recognition system. I checked all the drivers' licenses in North America. Two popped out, other than me."

"Who's the other one?"

"Alison Hendrix. She's from Canada... practically my neighbor."

"Okay, who are these people?"

Childs pointed at each picture as she recited the names, "Danielle Fournier, France. Janika Zingler, Austria. Aryanna Giordano, Italy. All deceased. All murdered."

_Murdered. Great._

"And you contacted me because...?"

"You might be in danger. As could be I or Alison or the German."

I'm only human. So the prospect of being murdered for some unknown reason that had something to do with my looks shook me. I still wasn't sure if this could be an elaborate prank.

I had almost forgotten that Childs was still watching me. "Hey, you okay?" Her voice sounded eerily like mine.

"Are you fucking kidding me? How the hell is that even possible?" I was suddenly angry. Strangely enough, I was angry with myself for not being able to come up with a possible explanation.

"Katja has a theory." She hesitated. "She says we're genetic identicals."

"Yeah but how? This is not just a familial connection, do you understand? This kind of similarity happens only among exact identicals."

She let out her breath in a rush. "She says we could be clones?" She must have been doubtful about the theory because it came out as a question.

"Detective, last time I checked, human cloning was illegal. Do you realize how many legal hurdles we have to face just to harvest human stem cells? No ethical committee would allow the project, no authority would sanction the funds... do you realize how expansive the set up has to be in order to be able to clone humans?"

_But the theory made sense, it made perfect sense. In fact, it explained the situation perfectly._

"It could have been an illegal experiment," Childs off handedly suggested. "Perhaps that's why they're killing us off."

_Yes, it made perfect sense. "_Yeah, if my experimental subjects were to become self aware, I'd either celebrate them or terminate them."

"Well, they're definitely not celebrating us," she replied wryly. "Look, could you help us figure out if we're indeed clones or not?"

Well, I could. Not right away, not under the scrutiny of my supervisors but may be in a few months when I would have the lab at my disposal. "Perhaps in a few months... I'd need DNA samples though."

"That can be arranged." The woman was staring pensively at the pictures lying on the table.

A thought occurred to me. "Look, could I meet the others? I mean, I trust you and everything but I still want to be sure what I'm dealing with here."

That seemed to break her out of her reverie. "Sure, drop by in Toronto sometime and I'll introduce you with Alison. You'll have to webcam the German though... she's still in Europe, trying to accumulate more evidence regarding others."

I glanced at my watch. It was past nine. My head was still swarming with wild thoughts and I had just learned that I could very well be a clone.

"Look I need to go. You already have my phone number. Thanks for the heads up though, detective."

"I'm doing this to save all of us... and call me Beth." She smiled despite herself as she offered me her hand.

I shook her hand and felt bad for lashing out at her earlier. "I wish I could've said it was nice to meet you but... perhaps next time?" I gave her a grin to reassure that it was okay.

I almost did a double take when she returned a splitting image of my smile. "It's okay, Cosima. At least you took it better than Alison. She's a nightmare... although I don't blame her. By the way, you're planning to keep this a secret, right?"

"Yeah... Yeah... obvs..." It was getting uncomfortable for both of us, I could tell. "So see you later?"

"Yeah, we'll stay in touch."

I sighed as I saw her exit the bar as stealthily as she had appeared. I leaned back on my chair and drained the remaining of my wine. My heart was pounding fiercely against my ribs and strangely enough, it wasn't fear alone. _Is it really possible that I'm a clone? _On theory, yes. Science is well advanced enough to make it possible and all that's stalling it from happening is the ethical committee. But could anyone have cloned multiple replica of human beings almost thirty years ago? It would be exciting to find out.

As I left the bar, I purposefully ignored the confused look that Tonya shot me. I wasn't in a position to explain anything to her, not when I didn't know myself what this was about. I hurried to the curb to catch a cab.

I had a lot of research to do.


	3. Chapter 3

_Wow, man. Wow. _

Beth wasn't kidding at all when she said Alison was a nightmare.

If Beth was the typical cop with Type A personality, Alison was... I don't know... obsessive compulsive, paranoid, hysteric etc etc. I could keep adding to the list without being wrong and it would probably read like a shrink's note.

Speaking of shrinks, Alison probably needed one.

After two weeks of extensive research on human cloning techniques, I had had enough. My curiosity was killing me. I wanted to meet my clones.

_That doesn't even sound real, Niehaus... _which is why I had to go to Toronto and see for myself.

I managed a weekend off for myself and set off for my destination. If there was a "cloneclub" out there, I wanted in. This could have profound implications for what I do everyday and having myself as the subject was the freakiest thing that could ever happen to me... in an awesome way!

We met at Beth's townhouse because her boyfriend, Paul, was out of town. Alison would never meet anywhere else anyway. It was not exactly a happy reunion of long lost identical triplets that she could host in her living room, graced by the presence of her husband and kids.

Our meeting was... interesting, for the lack of better word. I also found it kinda hilarious, in a morbid way, but I knew my humor wouldn't be appreciated by Beth or the soccer mom.

Alison had taken one glance at me before she buried her head in her hands and rocked on the couch and breathed out in an unnaturally squeaky voice, "Oh, oh, it's the same ugly face."

I'd have found it insulting but the absurdity of the situation struck me so hard that a hoarse chuckle escaped my throat. "Hate to break this to you, Ms Hendrix, but we have the same face."

Alison glared at me in response. "Do you think it's funny? Do you think it's funny? I have a family, a husband, two children. I live in a society. I have my friends. I have too many people to answer to. What do you think will happen if this gets out? What will I tell Donnie? What will I tell my children? That their mother isn't a real person? That Alison Hendrix is not a real person?" She finally gasped for a breath, "That she's... she's..."

"A clone?" I automatically completed her sentence, trying to help her out. Big mistake.

Alison flinched before lashing out, "Do not utter that word in front of me!"

I furrowed my brows in incomprehension. "Which word? 'Clone'?"

"I said do not utter the C-word." Her voice was menacingly low.

_Holy watershed, she's off her handle!_

Beth was sitting in the corner, nursing her whiskey and watching us. I looked at her and pleaded silently for help. How the heck was I supposed to deal with a woman who was allergic to scientific truth?

Beth shrugged before getting up, walking up to the couch and flopping down beside the lady in pink.

"Ali, she's trying to help." Her voice was quiet, resigned.

"Help? What help? I'm not sick! It's not my fault that I'm a... a... whatever. I have a family to protect. I don't need help. I don't want any part of this. I just want this to be over. I want to go back to coaching Gemma's figure skating classes."

"Dude, are you even real?" I couldn't help myself. Here was this amazingly intense thing going on where we were possibly the miracles of scientific advancement, a proof that living, breathing human beings could be created from scratch (not technically, but whatevs...) and here was this woman drenched in pink paint whose sole mission in life was to get back to figure skating. _Really?_

My question was a big mistake though.

"No, no, I'm not real," Alison howled. "I know I'm not. But I _have _to pretend I am. I have a reputation. I am _not _a random illuminati hippie with a nose ring and fake dreads."

"Don't forget the tats," I chimed in, pointing at my forearm but she only glared in response.

_Like I said, wow!_

I had to try a different approach. Humor was always the best for me but definitely not for this highly wound up woman. I had often wondered as a kid if there was an exact opposite version of me somewhere in a parallel universe... you know, kind of like matter and antimatter... and now I knew that an exact contrast of myself existed and it was her. Only, it wasn't a parallel universe and I wasn't her. Also, unlike matter and antimatter, we had to learn to coexist somehow.

_What a mind fuck! I'm too sober for this._

I tried to be as gentle as possible when I started again, "You are a real person, you know... and so are we."

When she looked up, her eyes were brimming with unshed tears. "I'm sorry. I'm not that rude." She sniffed. "What am I supposed to do? Oh dear God, what am I supposed to do?"

Her tears seemed to trigger something inside Beth and she quickly put down her glass on the coffee table before putting an arm around the quietly sobbing woman. The women shared camaraderie, which was nice to see... but it also stirred something inside me.

Behind all the science, all the euphoria, all the "know-it-all" hand waving and explanations, all the morbid humor and chemical induced high, I was lonely. I wish I had someone whom I could share my concerns with, someone who would just hold me and tell me that it'd all be okay... because I was painfully aware that while I was having the time of my life at the crest of this scientific roller coaster, a dreadful drop waited somewhere ahead. Someone was hunting us.

"So... can you tell us anything new?" This time it was Beth. Her voice was calm... but there was something else in her voice. Despair? Apathy? I couldn't quite place it.

I was reminded once more that no matter how much I craved for friendship, for a comforting hug, this was not a place where either of them was to be found. This might be the "cloneclub" (although I was sure Alison would retch at the nomenclature) but all of us were here by chance, because our makers had decided to replicate the same DNA sequences into multiple zygotes, because we all looked alike. We were here because we were in danger. Since the beginning of time, through out the twists and turns of evolution, animals move in packs in order to avoid danger. As time progressed, as _Homo sapiens _emerged, as the neolithic man learned to stand erect on his two feet, as the human brain's neocortex developed, they named their pack "society". But nomenclature apart, nothing had changed.

Here we were, three frightened animals, forming a pack in order to survive the unknown forces threatening to destroy us. We needed strength, Beth had it. We need knowledge, I had it... well, kind of. And Alison... I didn't know how she would fit in but she would. Animals have always found a way to adapt and be a part of the pack. A few engineered genetic sequences in our DNA wouldn't make much of a difference as far as our primal survival instinct was concerned. What was a delightful mystery to me until now had suddenly turned serious in the face of Alison's panic and Beth's despair.

Beth cleared her throat and I was reminded that I still had to answer her question. "Well... I was reading up on the gene replication techniques that were available around the time of our birth... and long story short, yeah, Katja's theory is probably right."

"But we're still human beings, right?" The panic in Alison's voice didn't amuse me.

"Yeah, yeah... of course... we are human beings. We have the same chromosomal structure as the human beings. When you make a photocopy of a document, both the original and the photocopy are papers, right? It's like that..."

"Only the photocopies are now going into the shredder..." Alison interrupted.

We were silent for a moment before Beth spoke up, "Do you know who the original could be? I mean, with all the DNA testing that you said you'll do, is it possible for you to find out?"

I shook my head, unsure of myself. "I really need to know what exactly we're looking at here before I can answer that. May be if Katja could hurry up..."

"She's trying but she's also trying to remain alive, so it's kind of tricky at the moment."

"Yeah," I sighed. Alison had effectively popped my bubble and now here I was, feeling freaky and lonely, with a million thoughts running inside my head and a desperate urge for pot growing inside me.

"You're tired," Beth observed in a detached tone. Something was amiss. I didn't feel her warmth that I had briefly felt in that bar in Minneapolis. Don't get me wrong, she was still calm, composed and dutiful... but something was missing. It wasn't stress or dread or fear... that would have been perfectly logical. It was the opposite, the absence of suitable affect that struck me as odd.

_Maybe she's one of those types who shut down under stress..._

"Look, I need to go back to my hotel... I have an early morning flight tomorrow..."

"Okay, I'll see you out."

I stood up, gathered my purse and gave Alison a small wave. The poor woman had no idea what's going on and if I were her, I'd have freaked out too.

Beth walked me out on the steps. "Are you sure you can manage your way back to your hotel alone?"

I smiled. "Don't worry about that, I got it."

"Here," Beth shoved something into my hand and it took me a moment to realize that it was a cheap prepaid phone. "Take this, we'll talk on this. It's safer this way."

"I see you've let Alison choose the color," I smirked as I shoved it inside my coat pocket.

Beth smiled and looked at me for a moment. "You've a nice sense of humor. It's a welcome change."

I waved my hand in fake nonchalance, "It's who I am." I grinned and turned, preparing to walk down the steps.

"Cosima?"

"Yeah?"

"I really like you, not to mention we need you. So... try to stay alive, okay?"

I didn't know how to respond to that. "You too..." I mumbled before making a hasty exit.

I sat in the cab, watching the city lights pass by, on my way back to my hotel. Hundreds of men, women and children thronged the sidewalks, busy on their way to their weekend destination. Two weeks ago, in a different city, in a different country, I was just like them. And now, everything was different.

The scene of Beth putting her hand over Alison's shoulders replayed in my mind. Alison had Beth. Beth had someone too... Paul... whoever he was. Perhaps, she wouldn't tell him what was going on but... she had someone she could turn to for comfort.

I exited the cab once I reached my hotel, paid the driver and trudged inside. Once I swiped the key card, the door opened and I entered. I took in the scene in front of me. The room was well lit and professionally decorated. My little red trolley bag still lay at the foot of the bed where I had left it in the afternoon. After making sure nothing was out of the ordinary, I dropped on the pristine white sheets without even bothering to remove my shoes. I removed my glasses with one hand and placed it blindly somewhere on the bed.

I was tired and I could feel my eyelids growing heavier. Ah well, I'd survive one night without dinner. As sleep took over me, I remember thinking only one thing.

_I wish I weren't alone._


End file.
